Not applicable.
Not applicable.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to fish farming, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for using sound for attracting and grading fish.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
It is often desired to provide a preserve within which hunters may shoot ducks, and it is also often desirable to fish in water provided in such a preserve. Prior art preserves are necessarily large and rather wasteful of land because groups of hunters must necessarily be separated by great distances so that they do not inadvertently shoot one another while shooting at the ducks. Furthermore, prior art duck hunting resorts rely on the unpredictable behavior of wild ducks, who only occasionally will venture into the hunting area when attracted by decoys and artificial duck calls. This unpredictability as to the presence of ducks can diminish the pleasure of hunting as hunters sit for hours without seeing a duck to shoot.
It is therefore desirable to have a duck hunting preserve that provides for higher density of hunters on a given area of land than heretofore possible. It is further desirable that such a duck hunting preserve provide a ready supply of ducks who remain in the preserve for shooting in a natural outdoor setting, without requiring any tethering or artificial restraint to retain the ducks within the preserve.
When raising fish in a commercial fish farming operation, it is desirable to have means for separating the fish into various xe2x80x9cgradesxe2x80x9d according to the size of the fish. Heretofore, as shown in FIGS. 23 and 24, commercial fish farming operations would use a body of water 200 that had a sloped bottom 210 such that, when the fish 220 were to be harvested, the water would be drained from its usual full level 205 to a lower level 205xe2x80x2 so as to cause the fish 220 to swim with the remaining water in the deeper end 230 and become densely packed in the deeper end 230. Once the fish were collected in the deeper end 230, a well-known scoop or net (not shown) would be used in a manner well-known to those skilled in the art to gather and lift the fish 220 from the body of water and into a grading tank 240 having a grading screen 250 of a certain mesh size that would permit smaller fish 220xe2x80x2 to pass through the grading screen 250 while retaining the larger fish 220, which are too large to pass through the grading screen 250, within the grading tank 240. It is also well-known in the prior art to use a succession of grading screens 250, each with different-sized mesh, to separate out various sizes of fish for harvesting, with smaller fish passing through the mesh depending on the mesh size and the size and species of fish. This prior art approach is undesirable because it requires the body of water to be drained in order to harvest the fish.
A preliminary patentability search in Class 43, subclasses 1 and 4.5, Class 273, subclasses 444, 447, and 140, and Class 473, subclass 466, for the duck shooting resort layout and duck training method of the inventor""s pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/901,233 (filed Jul. 9, 2001), of which this application claims priority and is a continuation-in-part, produced the following patents, some of which may be relevant to the present invention: Van Der Mude, U.S. Pat. No. 5,560,615, issued Oct. 1, 1996; and Maiwurm, U.S. Pat. No. 1,409,227, issued Mar. 14, 1922.
During the prosecution of the inventor""s pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/901,233 (filed Jul. 9, 2001), of which this application claims priority and is a continuation-in-part, the Examiner cited two references, namely, Safwat, U.S. Pat. No. 6,347,908 (issued Feb. 19, 2002), and Hillier, U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,049 (issued Jun. 14, 1977). The Examiner also pointed out that natural landscapes and national park areas allow hunting, and that the prior art included ponds, lakes, parks, bridges connecting to land over bodies of water, and naturally-occurring embankments that encircle water, channels, and contours formed in the land.
It is known to train domestic animals and to train animals in zoos and entertainment parks. However, the present invention of training fish using sound and food to congregate in a certain location in a commercial fish farming setting is not believed to be known prior to the present invention by the inventor, as more fully disclosed herein.
None of these references, either singly or in combination, disclose or suggest the present invention.
The present invention of the inventor""s pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/901,233 (filed Jul. 9, 2001) is a duck shooting resort layout having a body of water that is preferably an elongated channel, a peripheral embankment encircling and containing the body of water, a duck hunting region within the duck shooting resort layout and including at least a portion of the body of water, and preferably one or more duck hunting blinds within the duck hunting region from which duck hunters may shoot ducks. While prior art duck shooting resorts are well-known, a significant and non-obvious feature of the duck shooting resort layout of the present invention is the providing of trained ducks that have been taught to fly only within, and not outside, the duck hunting region. A variety of embodiments of the invention, with islands, piers, or embankment fingers in the body of water, are described that safely allow a high density of hunters to be accommodated within a given area of land. A method of training the ducks of the present invention to fly only within the duck hunting region has been experimentally tested and is described. A method of construction of the duck shooting resort layout is described that allows a terrain of land to be sculpted into the structure of the present invention at a minimum of cost and movement of dirt. A variation of the invention is provided in which the depth of the body of water increases substantially monotonically toward one or both ends of the body of water so that fish may be harvested by partially draining the body of water and forcing the fish to the deeper ends, and a second variation of the invention is provided with one or more fish grading screens being provided at the ends of the body of water to allow trapping and collection of different sizes of fish by the fish grading screens.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a duck hunting resort having trained ducks that have been taught to fly only within a certain duck hunting region. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a duck hunting resort that safely provides for a higher density of hunters within a given area of land than heretofore possible. It is a still further object of the present invention to provide multiple uses of the resort by allowing growing and harvesting of fish in the body of water within the resort.
An improvement of this duck shooting resort layout is also provided, namely, a method of using sound for attracting and grading fish in a commercial fish farming operation. A certain sound, such as a bell or other noise, is made during a training period, by which fish become trained to associate feeding with that sound, and learn to congregate in a certain location when that sound is made so that they can receive food and, if desired, medication. During harvesting, the sound is used to attract the fish into grading areas so that grading screens can be used to segregate fish of different sizes for harvesting.
It is an object of this improved method of using sound for attracting and grading fish to eliminate the need during harvesting for draining the body of water in which the fish grow. It is a further object of this improved method of training fish to provide the capability of collecting the fish into a confined area for controlled medication of the fish.